Unit 12 Teaching Integrated Skills

Teaching Objectives: 1. The reasons why we should integrate the four skills; 2. The ways we integrate the four skills;3. The implications for teaching;4. The limitations of integrating the four skills. I. The reasons why we should integrate the four skills In the last few units, we have talked about the four language skills and the need to integrate them in our teaching. When we communicate, we often use more than a single language skill. On the telephone, for instance, we listen and speakmaybe we also write down a message and read over what we have written. Transferring language from one medium to another is itself a skill. Think of dictation: we have to convert the spoken word accurately into written language. Task 1 Think of the language skills that might be used in the following situations. Tick the appropriate columns. Then add four more situations and tick the skills that might be involved. Can you think of a one-skill situation, a two-skill situation, a three-skill situation and a four-skill situation Situation Listening Speaking Reading Writing Discussing a magazine article with a friend Attending a lecture Riding a bicycle on your own Ordering a meal in a restaurant There are many situations in which we use more than one language skill. For this reason alone, it is valuable to integrate the language skills, but there are other reasons why integration can enhance the students communicative competence. Many educationalists stress the importance of building new knowledge and skills on to what students already know and can do. So, if students are able to read a short story, this skill will help them to write their own story. In the same way, if they can understand a dialogue about buying things in a shop, they can use this as a model for practising their own speaking skills in a similar situation. Also, integrating the skills allows you to build in more variety into the lesson because the range of activities will be wider. Instead of just having listening, the students can have speaking, reading and writing practice. This can raise their motivation to learn English. Above all, integrating the skills means that you are working at the level of realistic communication, not just at the level of vocabulary and sentence patterns. Realistic communication is the aim of the communicative approach and many researchers believe that handling realistic communication is an integral part of essential conditions for language learning: Conditions for Language Learning Essential Desirable Exposure Use Motivation Instruction

to a rich but com- of the language to listen to and read in language (i.e. prehensible input to do things the language and chances to focus of real spoken and (i.e. exchange to speak and write it on form) written language meanings) (i.e. to process and use the exposure) in use Figure 12.1 Essential and desirable conditions for language learning (Adapted from Willis, 1996:11) Integrating the four skills emphasises the focus on realistic language and can therefore lead to the students all-round development of communicative competence in English. II. The ways we can we integrate the four skills The easiest form of integration is within the same medium (either oral or written), from receptive to productive skills. Receptive Skill Productive Skill Oral Medium listening speaking Written Medium reading writing In other words, we would use a listening text as a model for the students speaking, and a reading text as a model for the students writing. This is common practice among teachers, and we will call it simple integration. Here is an example of simple integration, adapted from Junior English for China. The reading passage on the topic of introducing oneself serves as a model for the students own writing. My name is Jim Green. I live at 152 Jianguo Street, not far from the centre of the city. I have lived there since 1990. I go to Number 14 Middle School. Ive been a student there for nearly two and a half years. Now write about yourself in the same way. Task 2 Look in English language textbooks and find more examples of simple integration. What communicative language function or text is the focus of each example? INCLUDEPICTURE "mhtml:file://I:\\ \\12.mht! " \* MERGEFORMATINET

The second kind is complex integration. This involves constructing a series of activities that use a variety of skills. In each of the activities, there is realistic, communicative use of language. For example, look at this sequence of activities: Reading activity: a poster giving information about an English Club Oral activity: students make up a dialogue between the club secretary and a person who wants to join the club Writing activity: students complete a membership application form for the English Club based on their partners information Notice how one activity is closely linked thematically to the next. The information that the students get from the reading is useful in the oral activity, while the writing activity is based on information from the oral activity. Here is another example. Look how the reading comprehension exercise also serves as the basis for an oral activity. The Classroom Bank Every Tuesday, Carina Zhang goes to work in a bank. She knows all her customers very well, because they are her classmates. In fact Carina and her customers are all ten years old. Carinas bank is in a primary school in Chicago, in the USA. The bank is a branch of a national bank, but the children run it themselves. It is open for 30 minutes a week. During the mathematics lesson on Tuesday morning, Carina opens the bank. Her classmates deposit or withdraw money from their savings account. The bank pays interest on their savings. The idea for the bank came from the mathematics teacher, Mr. Green. He took his idea to the national bank. The bank agreed to his plan. Our bank teaches the children how to take care of their money, said Mr. Green. The bank is popular with the children. Carina Zhang said that it was a fun way to

learn something very useful. The newspaper reporter is intetviewing Carina Zhang. Complete the following dialogue, using the in formation from the passage. Reporter: How old are you, Carina? Carina: Reporter: U h-huh. Does the bank belong to the school? Garina: Reporter: Why did Mr. Green start the bank? Carina: Reporter: I see. And what do you think about the school bank? Carina: Reporter: When does the bank open? Carina: Reporter: And what services does it offer? Carina: Reporter: Thanks, Carina. Now interview your classmates and find out what they think about the classroom bank. Ask them to give reasons. The fill-in-the-blanks activity that the students are asked to carry out in completing the dialogue above is actually a form of reading comprehension. As the comprehension questions take the form of a realistic dialogue, the students can then practise their oral skills as well as their reading skills. The dialogue can then be used as a basis for the students own conversations, in which they discuss the idea of a school bank. (picture: P. 151) Task 3 Look at the following passage and design: a) a reading comprehension exercise in the form of a dialogue; b) a communicative activity based on the dialogue. Silent Wheels Mr. and Mrs. Lis new car is very special. It does not have a petrol engine. Instead it has an electric engine. We were worried about pollution, said Mrs. Li. Our car is cleaner and quieter than other cars on the road. However, their car was not cheap to buy. It cost double the price of a normal family car. There are other problems. Twice a week, the Lis have to recharge the battery, which takes a long time. Another good thing about electric cars is their working life, said Mr. Li. They last much longer than cars with petrol engines. The Lis car is made of a very light, but strong material called fibre-glass. The car has four doors and can hold five passengers. It can travel at 100 kilometres per hour. Its a good car for people who live in Beijing, said Mrs. Li. We dont need to travel long distances. Task 4

Heres an outline of a sequence of activities. Working as a group, use the outline as the guide for designing suitable contents for the first two activities. Then share your ideas with other groups. 1) Students listen to an interview between a radio reporter and a famous singer. 2) Students read a magazine article describing a famous film star. 3) Speaking: students make up and act out an interview between the radio reporter and the famous film star. 4) Speaking: students interview each other. 5) Writing: students write a magazine article about their partner. III. The implications for teaching As we noted earlier, integration of the four skills is concerned with realistic communication. This means that we are teaching at the discourse level, not just at the level of sentences or individual words and phrases. Discourse is a whole unit of communicative text, either spoken or written. Focus on discourse The main implication for teaching is that we need to be aware of the discourse features of a text and to be able to make students aware of them. This helps the integration of skills because it makes clear the teaching points and, for simple integration, the discourse features are the main language aspects that we transfer from one skill to the other. Discourse features include aspects such as: the way that the text is organised its layout (for written text) the style of the language (formal or informal?) the register (the vocabulary that is commonly found in such discourse). Task 5 Look at the text below. What are the features of its organisation, layout, style and register? 33 Whitefield Road Lancaster, England 25th January Dear Liu Ping. Thanks for your letter. It was good to hear from you. Im glad you are enjoying your new school. We had a very nice Christmas. All my family had Christmas dinner at home. my parents gave me a new dress. I got some lovely presents from my friends as welt. I saw on television that Spring Festival is coming soon. What are you going to do then? Please write and tell me. Best wishes, Carman Oral language tends to be less structured than written text, but there are some discourse features that we can teach our students. Look at this conversation as an example. (It comes from an integrated sequence. After this conversation, the students write to famous people inviting them to visit the school and enclosing instructions on how to get there.)

Tourist: Excuse me! Do you speak English? Zhu Qing: Yes, a little. Tourist: Oh good. Please can you tell me the way to Wuyi Street please? Zhu Qing: Wuyi Street? Yes. Go down this road... Tourist: Yes. Zhu Qing: Then turn right after the park. Thats Wuyi Street. Tourist: I see. Can I go on foot? Zhu Qing: Yes, its not very far. About ten minutes, I think. Tourist: Okay. Thank you very much for your help. Zhu Qing: Not at all. Goodbye! Tourist: Goodbye! Notice how the conversation is organised. The tourist opens the conversation, asks questions about the way and listens carefully to Zhu Qings directions, and then closes the conversation. The style is quite formal and polite. Typical vocabulary items include: Opening: Excuse me! Asking the way: Please can you tell me the way to...? Can I go on/by...? Giving directions: Go down this road.Turn right after the park. Listening carefully: Yes. I see. Okay. Closing: Thank you very much for your help. Goodbye! As teachers, we have to use our professional judgement, based on our knowledge of the students, to decide how much detail we should include in our lesson. It is important to keep a balance. Too much information may confuse them. Too little information may mean that they are not clear about the features of a particular type of discourse. Possible solutions to Task 5: As a friendly letter, the main text is organised so that it moves from a greeting to the writers news, followed by a request for information and then closure. The layout has the writers address in the top right corner, with the date below; then the letter opens on the left hand side with Dear ... The main body of the letter is then organised in paragraphs. At the foot, either on the left or right hand side, there is a valedictory (e.g. Yours sincerely) above the writers signature. The style is informal and peisonal. The informality is shown in the register: the use of short form (Thanks) and contraction (Im), of Best wishes as a valedictory, and of Carman instead of the writers full name there is no printed form of the name under the signature either. Adjusting the textbook contents Another aspect of our teaching that requires attention if we adopt an integrated approach is the use of the textbook. Although many modem textbooks have some integration of the four skills, we may still need to make some changes to the contents. This could involve altering the order of the contents. If the discourse of the writing activity is closely related to the reading passage, but is placed in a different part of the unit in the textbook, we could focus on the writing straight after we finish the reading passage. For simple integration, we can design a listening or reading comprehension activity that becomes a plan for speaking or writing. Imagine there is a short story about a

silly mistake. The comprehension activity could focus on the main discourse features of the short story: Answer these questions about the short story: Who are the main characters? Where does the story take place? What happened first? What happened in the end? What was the silly mistake? Now plan your own story about a silly mistake. Use the questions to help you For complex integration, it could mean making changes to the activities in the text book. Imagine there is a reading passage about a visit to a museum, which is followed by these comprehension questions: 1. Where did the children go today? 2. What did they see there? 3. Which part did Lily like best? 4. What did Lily think about the visit? This activity could be changed into a fill-in-the-blanks dialogue between Lily and her mother (similar to the dialogue about the classroom bank earlier in this chapter) or a fill-in-the-blanks entry in Lilys diary. Adjusting the timetable There also are practical implications for integrating the four skills. One is related to timetabling. In some schools, a whole lesson is given to teaching one skill. For example, there is a listening lesson one day, a reading lesson another day, and so on. Sometimes this is encouraged by the arrangement of materials in the textbook. We have to make the timetable arrangements more flexible so that we can integrate the skills better. IV. The limitations of integrating the four skills While integrating the four skills can help the development of students communicative competence, we must not overlook the useful role that a separate focus on individual aspects of vocabulary, grammar and skills can play. If taught well, these aspects can accelerate the students language learning. It is therefore necessary for teachers to maintain an appropriate balance between integration and separation. Integrating the four language skills can be demanding of the teacher. We need to have a good understanding of discourse, and to be able to use textbooks flexibly. This can also be time-consuming, requiring a lot of preparation. Sometimes teachers are so busy that they cannot spare much time for extra preparatory work. Another limitation is the problem of designing suitable materials that take account of students different skill levels. The four skills tend to develop at a different pace: receptive skills are stronger than productive skills, for example. This means that teachers have to be skilful is selecting or designing integrated activities for their students. V. Conclusion In this unit we have discussed why integrating the four language skills is desirable. It enhances the focus on realistic communication, which is essential in developing stu-

dents competence in English. We then identified two ways of integrating skills: simple integration, whereby a receptive language skill serves as a model for a productive language skill, and complex integration, which is a combination of activities involving different skills, linked thematically. We also discussed some of the limitations of integrating skills. The role of a focus on individual language elements, such as vocabulary and grammar, should not be overlooked, as they can play an important role in helping students to understand the English language system and in enlarging their range of language production. integration is also demanding of teachers in terms of finding or designing suitable materials, particularly when it is necessary to take into account the differing rates of progress of students in mastering the individual skills. Overall, however, these limitations should not prevent teachers from using the integrative approach. As we have seen from this chapter, the focus on realistic language in use can help students to develop communicative competence. Learning English can be more motivating, because the students are using the language for a real purpose, instead of, say, just practising the grammar. Integration requires skilful teaching, but it can bring worthwhile results. Assignments: 1. Review the Unit & do all the exercises. 2. Read Appendix 1 of TLEBC